


Hallow Moon

by BBPlaid



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Awkward Sex, Body Dysphoria, Gender Issues, M/M, Poor attempts at comedy, Trigger Warning In Notes, Xemnas is dense, guys dealing with periods, intersex Saïx
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:01:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26691847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BBPlaid/pseuds/BBPlaid
Summary: The moon represents fertility, womanhood, childbirth and power. Seeing as it’s Saïx's affinity, it’s only natural that he would embody all aspects of it.
Relationships: Isa/Lea (Kingdom Hearts), Saïx/Xemnas (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was a little saddened that I couldn't find any fanfics exploring 'womanhood' being a part of Saïx's power, so I wrote this angsty mess.
> 
> !:TRIGGER WARNING:!  
> This fanfic is told from the perspective of someone dealing with body dysphoria. If you find that triggering, this may not be something you will enjoy.
> 
> While it wasn't my intention for this to be perceived as a trans fic, that's what it somehow turned into. No disrespect to anyone who is trans or struggles due to disconnect between mind and body. This isn't supposed to be a call-out or a finger pointed in your direction or anything like that. Trans people struggle enough without having more bullshit thrown at them. I'm not here to fan the flames.

The universe has a way of screwing specific people over in the most exciting and surprising of ways. Saïx wasn’t sure what he’d done in his past life to deserve this particularly cruel punishment, but, exactly two weeks after becoming a nobody, his first period started.

Mother Nature didn’t give a rat’s arse about good timing or subtlety or not making him bleed at the most inopportune time possible, in front of two people he barely knew. Nor did it care that every piece of furniture in The Castle That Never Was were white.

Now, let it be known that Saïx was a man. Is a man. He identified as male. He was biologically male, had been since birth. No vagina, no breasts. Just a dick and balls. Nothing should have changed that.

And yet.

Saïx grit his teeth, the phantom feeling of rage turning his vision red. No matter how much he attempted to dodge, he still wound up getting hit. It was infuriating.

“Come on, Moon Boy! Let’s see what you’ve got!” Xigbar whizzed around in the air, pelting him in the face with fake bullets.

The other seven members of the newly-minted Organization XIII had powers that just _came_ to them, naturally. But not Saïx. Of course not. He couldn’t be as quick on the uptake as Axel, who started creating sparks hours after their reawakening, or Vexen who had already managed to stop accidentally causing indoor blizzards. Hell, even Zexion, a literal _child_ somehow controlled the power of illusions before Saïx couldn’t even figure out what the hell his powers were supposed to be.

All they’d managed to determine was his abilities were moon-related, or, at least, caused him to glow one time when the moon was high in the sky. What exactly that entailed, they had yet to find out.

Hence the reason Saïx was currently running around in a field in Radiant Garden at two in the morning with Xigbar teleporting to and fro whilst raining rubber fury upon him. Xemnas sat in a lawn chair, watching the whole ordeal with detached interest. Saïx didn’t understand why they were even _out_ on this night of all nights; it was a new moon. If his power really was linked to the moon, going out on a night without the moon was completely useless.

But who was he to argue? He was just an unwelcome tag-along who only wound up a Nobody in the first place due to his own dumbassery and insistence on trespassing. If anything, he should feel _grateful_ Xemnas and Xigbar were taking the time to train him at all.

It was hard to feel anything without a heart, and even harder to _pretend_ he felt gratitude when fury was so much easier to latch onto. Not that it was helping. No matter how angry Saïx got, he still wound up being pelted with NERF bullets.

“Be~hind you!”

Xigbar was suddenly hovering over his shoulder. The younger nobody whipped around to punch his smug attacker’s jaw, but only made it halfway through the motion before being struck with a severe bout of vertigo that had him vomiting on both himself Xigbar’s boots.

It came out of nowhere. One second, he was perfectly fine, the next he was on the grass in a sweaty, disgusting puke-covered heap of exhaustion that required Xemnas to carry his sorry ass back to the castle while Xigbar fetched him a spare change of clothing.

Saïx didn’t remember how long it took, or any of the logistics of how he wound up on the unused white chair in Xemnas’s quarters with the gunslinger in his face.

“Hey. C’mon, kid,” Xigbar was crouched next to him, shaking his shoulder and sounding more annoyed than angry, and marginally concerned. “Let’s get you dressed in something clean before you start snoozing on me.”

All Saïx could do was groan. He wasn’t sure what came over him, but maintaining consciousness was hard enough without being forced to answer questions. The concept of actually standing up and walking to the bathroom was something he could barely process, let alone accomplish, at the moment.

Xigbar got the hint that Saïx wasn’t in any position to do anything but lie there his own. “You care if I get you dressed?”

The younger nobody offered a barely coherent “okay.”

What happened next was a montage of panicking Saïx could barely process. Something about blood and someone potentially dying, and, at one point, he was pretty sure Xigbar screamed something about slicing his dick, before Saïx completely fell asleep.

When he woke up, he was in clean clothing and an unfamiliar bed. Xemnas was sitting in a chair next to him, silent but awake, and looking as close as an emotionless shell of a man could to a possum about to be hit by a truck. Xemnas, their normally unflappable leader, was so out of his comfort zone it was almost comical. He had Saïx down half a bottle of moonshine before informing him, in no uncertain terms, that he was in possession of lady bits and those female parts were not only present, but bleeding.

Saïx didn’t have a vagina. At least, he hadn’t before losing his heart. He hadn’t had a reason to go looking between his legs since then, so, imagine his surprise when he went to the bathroom and confirmed the truth for himself.

The sheer shock caused him to awaken his latent potential and triggered his first berserker rampage. Xemnas had to fight him down from it, kicking, growling and _bleeding_ , as he tore through his quarters. Xigbar, as if summoned by drama itself, appeared out of nowhere and it turned into an all-out brawl, Xemnas and Saïx scrapping around on the floor while the sharpshooter offered unwelcome commentary from the ceiling. It wasn’t hard for Xemnas, with his superior size and mass, to hold down the scrawny, seventeen-year-old Saïx.

Once they got Saïx somewhat comfortable in the bed, Xigbar and Xemnas left via dark corridor and returned forty-five minutes later with bottled juice, chocolate, and an entire aisle’s worth of feminine products.

The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to figure out how the supplies worked. Learning about tampons caused another Berserk rampage that Xemnas, with his godlike patience, handled with minimal violence.

In a rare display of understanding, the Superior permitted Saïx to use his private bathroom rather than the communal one the rest of the organization used. For convenience sake, and due to lack of any other furniture, Saïx was also allowed to share Xemnas’s bed.

Naturally, he bled through the sheets in the night. The next day was spent trying to figure out which pads were thick enough for him to not bleed through in an hour. Several pairs of underwear were sacrificed as Saïx struggled to figure out how to properly stick pads onto boxers when they were clearly intended to go on women’s panties.

On day number three, Saïx was hit with unbearable cramps that had him curled in a ball on the bed, and, sometimes, the floor when he wasn’t dry-vomiting in the adjacent bathroom.

He subsided on a diet of crackers and soup, which, when eaten slowly, he could hold down. Xigbar kept waving chocolate around in his face, as if that would magically fix the problem. It did not.

On day number four, Xemnas came to a revelation. Or, rather, he _voiced_ a revelation he, no doubt, already spent time mulling over.

“The moon represents fertility, womanhood, childbirth and power. Seeing as it’s your affinity, it’s only natural that you would embody all aspects of it.”

That was as good an explanation as any, and Saïx couldn’t find reason to argue. Not with the concept, at least. He did argue _vehemently_ to the point of triggering another rampage when Xigbar suggested getting a check-up from Vexen. Eventually, Xemnas stepped in.

“While I am not nearly as learned as Vexen, I’ve retained enough of my understanding of the human body to be able to do a rudimentary medical examination.” Their leader offered.

And, Saïx accepted. As awful as it was to wake up with women’s parts, he would rather know what was going on inside his body than not.

He’d expected it to be the most uncomfortable experience of his life, but it wasn’t. Xemnas was strictly professional, and Xigbar somehow refrained from making crude jokes for the entire hour they spent in the basement labs. Aside from having to provide a semen sample in order to determine if his male organs were still functioning properly, the exam was just like any other yearly doctor visit. At the end of it, Xemnas swore that neither himself nor Xigbar would tell a soul.

The fifth day, Saïx just bled. He felt well enough to go back to his regularly scheduled activities as if nothing was unusual, and easily dodged Axel’s concern by explaining that he’d activated his powers and they’d gone on an excursion to test abilities in a safe environment.

On the sixth and final day, Xigbar handed him a manilla folder filled with the lab results.

“I won’t bore you with the medical lingo, but congrats, kid,” Xigbar pat him on the shoulder a little harder than necessary. “All your junk is in working order.”

Saïx didn’t know how to feel about that. He excused himself, locked himself in his room, and spent the next four hours pouring over Xemnas’s prose and jargon he could barely understand, confirming his what? His fears? His hopes? He didn’t know.

Saïx had fully-functioning male and female reproductive organs. He had a working uterus. He could, according to the pages and pages of extensive information in front of him, have children both ways.

_Children._

He could, if he so desired, start a family with Lea.

And wasn’t that what he’d always wanted? Saïx wasn’t sure.

When Isa was seven-and-a-half and Lea was six, Lea told Isa they were friends. That boggled Isa. He had cousins, and his mom had friends whose children were forced to play with him, but none of those kids _liked_ him. He was the weird kid who kept to himself most of the time. When he talked, it was too blunt. He was mean, people said, but it was never intentional. Isa wasn’t trying to be mean or bossy or boring, but that’s what all the other kids his age thought, so he just assumed that’s what he was.

Until Lea. Lea didn’t mind when Isa said he was wrong. He laughed when Isa pointed out a flaw in his attire, he listened when Isa told him about his favorite books and the stars. And, most importantly, he smiled when he told them they were friends. Over, and over again. Lea would hug Isa and hold his hand and tell him they weren’t just friends, but _best_ friends. He said it often enough that Isa believed it. He didn’t care if the other kids in second grade thought he was weird for playing with a kindergartener. It didn’t matter, because they weren’t his friends. Lea was.

After that, being with Lea was all Isa ever yearned for. When he was nine and Lea was seven, they had their first sleepover. With no light besides the glow-in-the-dark stars taped to the ceiling, Lea admitted he was afraid of the dark. Isa said he wouldn’t mind the dark if Lea was there.

When Isa was twelve, one of his classmates asked if he wanted to go out with her. He told her no. When she asked him why, Isa promptly listed everything that made her undesirable to him, and she went home crying. The next day, her older brother punched him hard enough to bruise half his face. The second Lea saw it, he burst into tears. He later tried to beat up a kid twice his size and earned a matching black eye of his own.

When Isa was fourteen, he realized he wasn’t interested in girls. When he was fifteen, he realized he wasn’t interested in boys, either. The only person he was interested in had spikey red hair, the brightest green eyes in Radiant Garden, and a smile that could outshine the sun. When he was sixteen, Isa finally mustered up the courage. He took Lea by the hand, dragged him onto his back porch but, before he could confess, Lea kissed him on the lips.

The next step in their relationship would naturally be marriage, right? Marriage, and then they could get a little house together—probably red brick, with white accents, and a few dogs and lots of windows so they could look up at the sky together. They’d joked about it, about settling down and growing old together— the normal cliches.

When he was seventeen, Isa became Saïx.

Perhaps, if he was still in possession of his heart, Saïx may have been able to feel strongly in one direction or the other about being able to give Lea a family. Now, he just felt detached. Would Lea even _want_ a family?

A bitter thought rose to Saïx’s mind. Whereas Isa had always only had eyes for Lea, Lea was gay. He liked men. His first crush had been some lead singer of a rock band, and he was adamant about finding women sexually gross. As he was now, did Saïx even fully qualify as a man anymore? 

He felt the echo of a bitter feeling in his stomach. It felt different from the cramps that he’d felt a few days prior. The fact that he even knew what menstrual pain felt like somehow made that bitter feeling worse.

That night, Saïx fell asleep curled up in a pile of papers.

When he woke up, his period was over.

Those six days were awful. The entire bloody experience was awful. It had been incredibly awkward and embarrassing, and Saïx, thoroughly traumatized by the entire ordeal, spent the next month adequately preparing for his next period so he wouldn’t have to go through hell a second time.

It took several months to get used to this new part of himself. Growing a uterus and losing a heart wasn’t a fair trade by any stretch of imagination, but the additional parts were a lot easier for him to come to terms with than the bleak emptiness in his chest. Soon, it became routine—much like the moon waxed and waned, his body was on a predictable cycle.

Though, some days, he found himself with an incredible tightness in his groin. He’d go to relieve his bladder only to find his vagina slick with arousal. Were he a more experimental man, he would have _experimented_ with his new biology; he wasn’t and had no interest in spending valuable time that could be spent working towards regaining his heart and his _future_ on fruitless activities like masturbation.

When he was roughly eighteen years old, an incident with the dusks and their newest member, Demyx, resulted in half the castle’s plumbing not working. Saïx stepped out of Xemnas’s shower, looked at himself in a full-body mirror for the first time in a year, and realized he had breasts. They weren’t ample breasts, but they were unmistakably more rotund than any man’s chest ought to be. He also had noticeable hips. The sight of himself looking so decidedly in-between man and woman should have been bizarre and shocking, but, Saïx could no longer remember how it felt to be surprised by something, so he skipped panicking altogether and focused instead on how he’d go about hiding his new assets.

The hips were an easy fix: due to the sheer amount of muscle mass he’d accumulated through training to withstand his berserker rages without self-injury, they weren’t obvious unless he was naked.

Which, of course, he never was. Saïx refused to let anyone see him in any state of undress. He chose times when he was positive the showers would be empty to bathe, and he only used the bathroom when it was completely empty.

As the years progressed, his little secret became more and more difficult to hide. Especially in the chest region. Some days, for no discernible reason, his breasts would be so incredibly sore and sensitive that even the soft leather of his coat hurt as it brushed against his tender nipples. It hurt, but he grit his teeth and bared it.

Both the gritting his teeth and the throbbing tits became an unfortunate pattern. For the first four years of his non-existence, Saïx’s breasts seemed to do nothing but grow before finally settling on being a pair of decently-large annoyances too plump to fit comfortably within his palms. Every morning, before dawn, he arose and shoved himself into coats tight enough to flatten those irritating twin lumps.

Despite his best efforts, his stupid boobs refused to let him ignore them; halfway through the day, they’d become unbearably uncomfortable, and have him struggling to breathe. It got to the point where he often had to excuse himself during lunch with Axel. ‘Often’ eventually turned into him spending half an hour each day eating behind a locked door and desperately inhaling air with his coat unzipped, nipples a bright, irritated red.

Logically, he knew that his problem could be fixed simply by wearing clothes that fit. But he _couldn’t_. It wasn’t the fact that he had women’s parts that bothered him; it was what they represented.

The growth spurt in his early twenties, and the lengthening of his hair were changes he could acknowledge because they were natural occurring things that would have happened to Isa in time. The breasts, the vagina—those were things that belonged to _Saïx._ To let anyone see would practically be announcing to the world, and, more importantly, Lea that he wasn’t Isa anymore.

((It would be admitting to himself that he may never return to being fully Isa again.))


	2. Chapter 2

“Dammit, Isa,” Axel swore, running his fingers through his unkept mane. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Saïx looked at him, blankly, uncomprehendingly, and Axel continued.

“Look, it’s obvious neither of us is really into this,” he waved at the empty space between them, “anymore. I’m not an idiot; I’ve known you long enough to tell when you’re uncomfortable. Just felt like you’d know _me_ well enough to know I’m not going to turn my back on you because of that.”

“What?” Saïx found himself asking dumbly.

“No point continuing to play pretend just for the sake of it.” Axel shrugged. He didn’t even sound upset, just _relieved,_ like he was finally getting something off his chest and not pulling the foundation of everything Isa ever yearned for out from beneath Saïx. “Maybe _you_ can do it, but I can’t.”

“Lea—" Saïx began, but Axel cut him off.

“We were young. We were stupid,” he paused, and amended: “ _I_ was stupid. I’d like to think I’m mature enough now to handle my first breakup,” he smiled, bittersweet. “You don’t have to keep acting like you’re into me anymore, okay? Let’s stop pretending before we start hating each other.”

This had been a long time coming. For the last five years, Saïx and Axel had been slowly drifting apart, until what they once claimed as love somehow faded into something that barely resembled a loose friendship. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to either of them that their relationship would come to an inevitable end.

Yet, the castle was crumbling beneath his feet and Saïx was falling. Blood rushed in his ears, muffling Axel’s voice. The other man kept talking, but all Saïx could hear was the word ‘pretend’ echoing over and over.

Was that what he was doing? It would make sense; they were nobodies, after all. They were incapable of experiencing the feelings necessary to share an emotional relationship, so it would make logical sense that he’d been acting this entire time, subconsciously clinging to the last remaining semblance of normal from his previous life.

His face must have betrayed some of his racing thoughts, because Axel looked at him, mistook his shock for something else, and scoffed.

“Look, just because we’re not making out like teenagers doesn’t mean we’re not in this together. I’m not going to ditch you just because we’ve stopped pretending to do whatever the hell this is,” the younger man waved his arms, gesturing at nothing in particular. “Don’t worry-- I’ll still follow along with your plans or whatever. We’re going to get our hearts back,” Axel scratched the side of his neck uncomfortably. “I made you a promise. I don’t break promises.”

Saïx blinked at him dumbly, and Axel pat him on the shoulder to be, what? Friendly? Reassuring?

“You don’t have to pretend to be into me anymore, okay?”

And, with that, the conversation was over.

They were standing in Axel’s bedroom. It was Saïx who had invited himself in, and so Saïx was forced to invite himself out.

He did so in a daze.

If he had a heart, Saïx would have been heartbroken. He didn’t, and therein lied the problem that got him in this mess in the first place.

Axel didn’t understand. He didn’t try to. He wanted more than just fleeting touches and rarer kisses. He wanted Saïx to give him his everything _now_. Axel couldn’t comprehend that, without a heart there was nothing _to_ give. Nothing, except his body, and Saïx refused to let Axel see him like this.

Not when he wasn’t yet completely whole. (Not when he had a gaping hole between his legs.)

So Axel assumed he was disinterested, and Saïx couldn’t prove otherwise.

Had he the ability to, he may have cried. He couldn’t, so he didn’t. Instead, he went to his room and blazed through his emergency booze stash.

Then, he tore his bedroom apart.

After that, he went to Xemnas.

It was stupid and potentially life-threatening. Even his foggy, drunken mind was aware that seeking out _Xemnas_ for comfort was a terrible idea. However, with Axel gone, who else did he have?

With Axel gone, what else had he to lose? Nothing, except--

The likelihood of Xemnas taking offense was high. The likelihood of him throwing Saïx out was higher.

The risks were irrelevant.

Saïx summoned a portal before he could think too hard about it. He stumbled out, completely disheveled, nearly throwing up on the edge of Xemnas’s mattress and said, quite eloquently, and without stuttering:

“I want you to fuck me until I feel.”

Xemnas was reading in bed, dressed down to nothing but black sweatpants and a sweater, when Saïx haphazardly appeared in his personal quarters demanding to be sexed. To his credit, he simply nodded, marked the page in his self-help book, and sat up straighter to nonverbally communicate that his subordinate was receiving his undivided attention.

“This is a new development, Seven,” Xemnas’s deep, chocolately man voice reverberated around his sparsely decorated bedroom. “When last we talked, you were adamant on getting your heart back via Kingdom Hearts. Has something… changed?”

Saïx paused. Normally, he was able to come up with a professional, well-worded response to any essay question on the spot, but he was only four hours and six bottles of moonshine past a bad breakup. So. Pardon him if his mind was a little razzled and his mouth couldn’t quite wrap itself around words the way he wanted it to. He’d been through a lot.

Mental capabilities compromised by ‘shine, the buff blunette looked his boss dead in the eye and managed a mockery of fighting back tears.

“I’m empty inside… I’d feel less empty if your dick was inside me.”

…that sounded so, so much cornier and cheesier when said aloud. However, Xemnas, master of monologuing and making nonsense sound like flowery poetry, was completely unphased.

“Then this is a temporary cure. I see,” Xemnas bobbed his head along, and casually pat the empty side of his bed like he was inviting Saïx to share a park bench with him and not about to do the nasty.

That should have been a neon red sign telling him to turn on his heel and walk away, but Saïx ignored it.

Just the opposite, in fact.

He took several steps forward and stripped.

For the first time in years, he allowed himself to be less than fully presentable in front of another person.

Allowing Xemnas to see his naked body, breasts and all, was oddly therapeutic. A spring Saïx hadn’t even realized was tightly wound uncoiled inside of him. It was a lot like taking his hair down after a long day—not that he ever wore his hair up, but the sentiment remained.

Saïx guided the other man’s hands to his chest, and the superior simply sat there, staring in something like transfixed awe at the soft tits spilling over his large fingers.

That minimal contact was enough to get Saïx half-hard. Arousal leaked from his vagina until it coated his upper thighs.

He needed Xemnas inside of him _stat._

Saïx pushed Xemnas down onto the bed and tore off the man’s pants in the same fluid motion. They rolled until Xemnas was on his hands and knees above him. Somewhere in the struggle, the Luna Diviner’s fingers found their way into his weeping vagina.

It wasn’t enough.

“Fill me,” he begged of his superior.

And Xemnas, occasionally gracious leader that he was, complied.

At the time, Saïx had been inebriated beyond coherency, yet he still recalled later, with vivid clarity, how bad his superior was in the bedroom.

Xemnas was a passive, impassionate lover. He was receptive, but he never initiated contact. It was like he didn’t know where his hands were supposed to go, or what he was supposed to do with his mouth when they kissed, or how, logistically, his penis was supposed to fit inside Saïx. And, logistically, Saïx didn’t know that either.

Xemnas’s dick was absolutely massive. It was dark and gargantuan, the foreskin making it appear even thicker and heftier. The tip was a fabulous fuchsia. It was, in all honestly, the complete opposite of the man who wielded it; whereas Xemnas had the tendency to be soundless and his power over nothingness often granted him the illusion of taking up little space, his penis screamed for attention and begged to be seen.

Were he not drunk off his ass when first they fucked, Saïx would have thrown in the towel and given up the moment he saw that devastating dong. Even then, losing his vaginal virginity to such a ferocious phallus was hell. He didn’t remember much of it though, but it was impossible to forget Xemnas taking five entire minutes to slowly ease himself, from tip to balls, into Saïx’s longing entrance.

(It wasn’t in a sexy, slow way, either. No bliss, just pain, long and drawn out, much like every time Xemnas opened his mouth.)

Sex with Xemnas was, for lack of better word, _weird._ Not bad-- it was hard to have bad sex when the penis was so large that simply wiggling his hips was enough to compensate for his partner’s hesitation—but not great. Even Saïx, previously a virgin, could recognize that Xemnas’s dick wasn’t big enough for him to keep coming back to the Superior’s bedroom for what was, quite frankly, bizarre and unarousing sex. Yet, for reasons unbeknownst to him, he did.

At first, it was just on his days off. Those were the harder days, where he had no work to distract him from his empty chest or his loneliness. When their organization gained more members who immediately got buddy-buddy with Axel in a mockery of friendship, Saïx found himself making excuses to go to Xemnas’s quarters after-hours. Fairly soon, he stopped justifying his actions altogether.

Every time he returned to Xemnas’s bedroom, the man did something completely baffling. It was like Xemnas had never been in physical contact with another person before Saïx. Once, he sniffed his hair and refused to let go of his hand. Another time, he fell asleep in the middle of the act, balls-deep in Saïx’s ass, and Saïx had to lay there, beneath his dead weight until morning. The first (and last) time Xemnas attempted a blowjob, he prefaced the ordeal by waxing poetry about Saïx’s genitals, causing Saïx to shut him up with his dick before his “pearly white phallus, perfectly proportioned, as if sculpted from marble” went limp.

The worst, and possibly weirdest of all of Xemnas’s strange sexual idiosyncrasies, was the verbal exchange. He would talk, almost incessantly, about any and everything while thrusting into Saïx. To Xemnas, the act of sex seemed like merely a means to casually converse with someone. It was an impressive display of stamina, sure, but Saïx would have much rather have just the _sex_ without having to participate in a mentally stimulating conversation about the ethics of commercialized combat.

As if to make up for his pathetic lovemaking, Xemnas became bolder and more romantic with each encounter. He began bringing Saïx little gifts, flowers, candies, rare and expensive liquor. He’d present them in unorthodox ways, leaving them around places like Saïx’s office for the man to find rather than outright handing any of them to him. It was a silly, pointless practice that never failed to baffle the second-in-command.

(If Saïx didn’t know any better, he’d say the Superior was attempting to court him.)

Even more mind-boggling was the way he held Saïx for hours after sex, monologuing sweet nothings. Xemnas was a cuddler, it turned out. He’d latch onto Saïx with an unbreakable grip, squeeze him close and refuse to let go until morning. It was sweet, in the way a pet snake wraps itself around its handler to decide if the person is small enough to swallow before contenting itself with sharing warmth.

Some evenings, after a particularly long or stressful day, Saïx would visit Xemnas on the cusp of rage.

Despite the bared teeth and the feral glint in his eye, Xemnas would welcome him into his bedroom if there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Xemnas allowed himself to be shoved against the walls. He allowed Saïx to rip off his clothing and litter his caramel skin with purple scratches and bite marks. When thrown atop the bed, Xemnas smiled and offered words of _praise_ rather than reprimand. Every order snarled through barred teeth was immediately followed.

For the duration of Saix’s rampages, their roles were reversed; Xemnas was the obedient underling, meek and willing, and Saïx was the superior whose each and every whim was law.

And their leader permitted it.

Saïx didn’t understand.

He would never apologize for his insubordination; Xemnas could easily overpower him if the Superior willed it. He never did, and that’s what baffled Saïx the most.

Xemnas’s bedroom offered a beautiful view of the night sky. Most nights, Saïx found himself staring up at their pathetically small moon longingly as Xemnas curled around him, wondering how long it would take that measly golden dot in the sky to blossom into the wish-granting Kingdom Hearts that would make him Isa again.

One evening, the moon wasn’t enough for Saïx to completely lose himself in. He lay there restlessly, back against Xemnas’s broad chest, desperately trying to will himself to sleep. The particular night, Xemnas decided to overshare.

“Much like the moon grants you the power of fertility,” The man’s voice rumbled in his abs, vibrating against Saïx’s bare back. One of his hands shifted to rest on the smaller man’s belly. “My command over nothingness renders me infertile.”

“You’ve been shooting blanks.” The awful joke was out of Saïx’s mouth before he could stop it. He choked in horror.

Surprisingly, that emitted deep laughter from the larger man.

He chuckled, and Saïx could feel his breath against his neck.

“It’s a shame,” Xemnas continued after a moment. “You’d make an excellent mother.”

Saïx said nothing. He wasn’t interested in children, nor was he interested in being anyone’s _mother_ —once they’d regained their hearts, he’d regain his place with Axel and his body would no longer be a mis-mashed fusion of male and female. Even if it didn’t and Isa inherited Saïx’s bastardized gender, _Lea_ was the person he’d settle down with.

That Xemnas presumed his own infertility was the only thing keeping Saïx from baring whatever future children he’d never have…

Well.

The implications were staggering.

A family with _Xemnas_ of all people was a far-off fantasy that would never happen. He couldn’t fathom why Xemnas was indulging in imagining impossibilities, nor could Saïx fathom why Xemnas was indulging in concocting fantasies centered around him.

It was illogical.

Saïx was aware that he was incredibly unlikeable. The only person who had ever genuinely enjoyed being around him was Lea, and that was back when he’d been Isa.

Lea was the outlier, and, as much as he cared for him, Saïx could never claim that Lea was the brightest.

Xemnas, however, was smart. He wasn’t emotionally driven like Lea had been. No one with any amount of intelligence would want to be with someone as short-tempered and blunt as himself.

Oblivious to Saïx’s racing thoughts, Xemnas continued. “The memories of my time before becoming a nobody are forever lost to me, but I think… I believe I’d like children. Children make noise to fill the silence. Eager young ears to tell stories to…Perhaps they could look like me.”

Saïx blinked. That was a deeply personal, borderline feeling-fueled confession, not something he expected to hear from the apathetic Superior of all people. And Xemnas, he knew, didn’t say anything that wasn’t intentional.

Which meant one of two things:

Xemnas was either stringing him along for some larger scheme…

…or he was incredibly smitten.

The second was unfeasible. Nobodies lacked the capacity to feel anything other than fleeting echoes of what they felt prior to losing their hearts. Xemnas had no previous inclinations towards Isa, therefor it was impossible for him to develop romantic affection for Saïx.

Which meant he was playing him. For what end, Saïx didn’t know. It was in his best interest to play along until he found out.

“Children are… nice.” Saïx offered vaguely. Xemnas hummed into his hair.

“Once we regain what was taken from us, perhaps we could create some. I’d fill you with seed in the winter, watch you grow and flourish through spring. With summer, you’d be ripe and full, ready to give birth by fall, year after year, if only you’d let me.”

What the fuck. Was that supposed to be romantic?

“We could live by the seaside, perhaps. As our family grows, so too would our home. Every night we’d go to sleep in each other’s embrace, soothed by our children’s snores and the waves in the sea.”

Saïx was desperately trying to figure out what was happening, but Xemnas continued to verbally steamroll right over him.

“If Kingdom Hearts were to be completed within two years, you’d be twenty-six. Women, on average, ovulate for thirty years. Taking into account a statistic from a health magazine I perused, woman with more children start menopause later in life; being generous, that leaves us with roughly thirty years of procreation. Now, given your affinity, if we were to conceive on the Cold Moon after the Winter Solstice, we’d likely be successful. You’re incredibly fertile, so it’s possible you may frequently carry numerous children at once…”

Xemnas continued talking, and Saïx lay there soothed by the deep timber. It was almost comfortable, if Saïx ignored the fact Xemnas kept rattling off menstrual cycle statistics while attempting to calculate how many future children they’d have together in their perfect beach cottage.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little more light-hearted, because I wanted to introduce the supporting cast properly before things got too heavy and yeh. I hope it doesn't seem too out-of-place.

After Xemnas’s confession, Saïx had fully intended to cut whatever their little fling was _off._

He had no desire to be Xemnas’s womb, nor did he have any desire to pretend he _liked_ the idea of growing children inside of him.

It wasn’t that he didn’t. Something about being filled to the point of pregnancy spoke to the emptiness inside of him. The thought of getting pumped with so much semen that even a man as hollow as him, someone who couldn’t even classify as a person, could fill his inner emptiness with life was oddly appealing. After Xemnas brought up the possibility of Saïx, empty broken, Saïx, glutted with child, the Luna Diviner couldn’t get the image out of his head. He couldn’t stop envisioning himself swollen. He couldn’t stop imagining coming home to a little red-brick cottage and being greeted by a faceless child while another kicked in his belly.

That fantasy was wrong. Saïx, no _Isa_ , was a man. There was no way, in any future, he’d be a mother. It was biologically impossible.

Saïx needed to stop sleeping with Xemnas before he convinced himself otherwise.

However, one thing led to another, and another thing, once again, led Saïx to Xemnas’s bed after dark after swearing himself sex with the Superior.

Though, ‘sex’ was putting it rather strongly.

One would think that, after nearly a year of regular sex together, Xemnas would cease to be amazed by his partner. He wasn’t.

In fact, the more the slept together, the more the larger man waxed on and on and _on_ about his bedmate’s body. Saïx had been forced to listen to hours’ worth of prose about the curve of his hips, and the delicate swell of his thighs. Without prompting, Xemnas wove free-verse ballads about his hair and eyes and the way the moon reflected off all of these features tauntingly.

Lately, the part of Saïx featured most heavily in the Superior’s impromptu post-sex slam-poetry sessions was his sizable chest. Like most men, Xemnas appreciated a large pair of tiddies to pamper and play with. He’d squeeze them in reverence and rub them against his cheeks as he buried his face in the valley between the two mammary mountains.

It wasn’t even entirely sexual.

“I find your chest comforting,” Xemnas had explained bluntly one evening, his words muffled by the warmth of Saïx’s bosom. “Most of your body is defined muscle and restrained power, yet your breasts deviate from that. They’re soft and malleable. The incongruousness with the hardened stomach beneath is… pleasing.” He’d lifted his head from his human pillow to meet Saïx’s gaze. “Laying with you like this reminds me of a home I can no longer remember.”

Which was all well and good, if Xemnas would actually get him _off._

Xemnas approached Saïx’s breasts with the zeal of a young child playing with his first stress ball and the tenderness of a veterinarian holding a wounded baby bird.

He was oddly fascinated with the way his partner’s nipples hardened with minimal stimulation, and had taken to making a game out of seeing how long he could keep them soft while squeezing them.

Laying his head on Saïx’s stomach and burying his hands beneath those warm tits, Xemnas eyes were half-lidded and his lips perked ever-so-slightly in the corners in a mimicry of contention. He looked much like a lazy, overly large cat, gently poking at prodding at his food before swallowing it whole.

Except Xemnas never swallowed Saïx’s breasts. He just played with them, gently.

Xemnas’s actions weren’t nearly enough to be anymore than endearing, which was problematic. Saïx was in the mood to be fucked, not coddled.

The blue-haired bottom fought the urge to yawn. He should have brought a book.

“Pull harder.” He muttered. Xemnas merely looked at him with confusion, so Saïx was forced to demonstrate.

He grabbed one of his nipples tightly and pulled it directly upward before releasing it. The boob plopped against his chest like a pile of pudding before returning to its previous perkiness.

Xemnas watched approached the other tit with hesitation. He, for whatever reason, seemed to think Saïx was fragile. A little teet tug wasn’t nearly enough to injure the local Berserker.

Eventually, though, he experimented. The Superior wrapped his large fingers around Saïx’s small, perky nubs. He pulled them in various directions, trying out different grips, but, eventually, he got to the point where Saïx was panting in pained pleasure.

If nothing else, that was progress.

If anyone asked Saïx to make a top-ten list of fellow Organization members who angered him, ranked from most to least infuriating, he would. Gladly. Nobody asked this of him (yet) but, being an overachiever, he’d created one anyway. It was laminated with a fancy Microsoft Word 2000 border made up of pixelated radiation symbols. Saïx carried it around at the back of his Important Looking clipboard on the off-chance anyone ever asked for his opinion regarding his colleagues.

Earning prestigious position of #1 Worst Organization Member (according to Saïx), was Larxene.

Larxene was, for lack of less vulgar terminology to accurately sum up her character, a heinous bitch. She was an electric pain-in-the-ass and an unfair representation of women as a whole. Everything she did seemed to be calculated to be done in the most vexatious manner possible, and every time she opened her mouth, Saïx wanted to permanently shut it with an array of pain-inducing office supplies.

If he didn’t know better, Saïx would be convinced she had a personal vendetta against him, specifically. It was the little things, really. Vulgar comments. Stomping on his feet when she walked by. She intentionally went out of her way to make him uncomfortable, too. Whenever they interacted, Larxene felt the need to physically touch him and call him names. It could be mistaken for flirting, had Larxene not made it abundantly clear that she’d rather stick razors in her vagina than hook up with Saïx.

The feeling was mutual. 

When she’d first joined the Organization, Xigbar commented that she and Saïx had a lot in common. Saïx wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be sexist or outright incorrect. Either way, he was morbidly offended; unlike Larxene, he didn’t spit and spew toxicity. He bottled that shit up and wrote about it in his diary, because he was a mature _adult_ not an imp determined to act like the ‘snooty popular girl’ in every goddamned high school drama.

Larxene irked him in a way that no other member of their merry band of nobodies could. It was more a testament to his restraint than her capability as a fighter that there wasn’t a claymore-sized dent in her.

Personally, Saïx wanted to grind her into dust and put the dust into Marluxia’s herbal bullshit tea because Marluxia was an enabler and he shouldn’t be excluded from suffering Larxene like the rest of them.

Professionally, Saïx wanted to accidentally push (throw) her off a bridge into a lake and watch her short-circuit and self-destruct. That way, it seemed less vindictive and more of a mishap. Just an unfortunate oopsie that came as an occupational hazard when you’re a car battery walking the razer-thin line between crass cunt and lawsuit for workplace harassment.

Not that he’d put any thought into it.

Saïx would, never, _ever_ plot out the murder of a coworker.

Maybe he could send her on a mission to Atlantica. He could easily make it look like an unintentional little paperwork switcheroonie. If Xemnas asked, he could feign exhaustion from their less-than-intense intercourse. If Marluxia asked, he would send him to Agrabah and let him suffer.

Though, knowing Larxene, she’d probably take to water like an electric eel and come out twice as powerful and thrice as irritating.

And, Light knows that’s the last thing anyone needed.

The only redeemable quality Larxene had was being the singular woman in Organization XIII. 

This was less for diversity-related reasons, and more because her presence made it easier for Saïx to hide his less manly assets.

With a female present, Saïx no longer had to hoard pads and tampons in a secret room in the castle like some kind of doomsday prepper. He could keep them in their shared bathroom like a sane individual and not worry about anyone looking at him funny because everyone else would automatically assume all feminine hygiene products belonged to the feminine person in their group.

Larxene also unknowingly protected him from Zexion’s damnable sense of smell.

Now, Saïx and Zexion had never gotten along. It wasn’t due to any bad history or hard feelings, but simply due to clashing personalities. They were either too alike or too different and, while not immature enough to ever be at the other’s throat, shared mutual distaste.

Zexion, much like Saïx, was bitter to a fault. He was also incredibly manipulative. If he ever caught wind of Saïx’s little predicament, Saïx would never live it down. His terrible secret can and _would_ be used as blackmail material.

Luckily, they Zexion was the member Saïx spent the least amount of time with, and that was well and good. They were only ever together in full-group settings, which was favorable.

Any time Saïx was menstruating, he could siddle on up to Larxene during Zexion’s rare appearances. The man’s eyebrows would raise ever-so-slightly in realization and he’d slowly back away from the room and disappear for a week or so.

It was foolproof.

She was his failproof shield and, dammit. This particularly Tuesday morning was one of very few instances Saïx wished Larxene was present, and she failed him.

So now, Saïx had no choice but to spend the duration of however long Xemnas felt the need to monologue with his legs crossed, doing everything in his power not to be too obvious in squeezing his thighs together as he cursed his luck, hoping beyond hoping that Zexion, with his enhanced sense of smell, wouldn’t detect a change of scent.

It was rare for them all to be present for a meeting—even when they were on-world, Vexen and Zexion tended to get so caght up doing their science that they often missed meetings. Vexen especially was typically a no-show unless someone (usually Saïx himself) dragged him out of his lab for important business.

With that said, it was even rarer for Zexion or Vexen to be in their assigned seats with others absent if they hadn’t been specifically summoned.

Had Saïx known Zexion would show up, he would have found himself immediately required to deal with a situation off-world, but, naturally, he couldn’t be so lucky. Three minutes into the meeting, Zexion appeared in his chair with a bagel, which was five minutes too late for Saïx to smoothly make an exit.

The meeting seemed to last longer than usual.

(Not that Saïx, or anyone else, could be sure. Xemnas strictly prohibited the usage of wristwatches or a clock in the meeting areas, as some kind of mind game for his own sick amusement.)

Since they were sitting directly across from each other, Saïx was unsure whether or not Zexion was staring at him because he knew, staring at him because he was in his direct line of vision, or fading in and out of consciousness with his eyes open and Saïx just happened to be directly in front of him.

The not knowing was torture, in the purest and most painful form.

“In conclusion,” Xemnas uttered those two magical words that signified an end to his long-winded informal address. Demyx sat up straighter. Xigbar’s visible eye regained the light it had lost somewhere in the middle of a tangent about non-existence. Luxord nearly dropped the cards he’d been mindlessly shuffling out of sheer excitement.

And then, instead of concluding the meeting, Xemnas stopped. The room was silent, as the other nobodies waited with bated breath for their Superior to dismiss them.

Their leader’s face contorted into a forced expression of confusion, that evolved into something that barely resembled acceptance.

Saïx, Xigbar, Xaldin, Lexaeus, Zexion, Demyx, Luxord—all of them waited on the edge of their seats in anticipation.

They were not disappointed.

The fart came out in a deep, sultry drawl. It was slow and sensual, with the faintest hint of deeper meaning lurking beneath that musky, putrid aroma. Xemnas’s muscular, meaty mancheeks did nothing to muffle the sound. Quite the opposite, in fact. As the toot traveled through, those thick ass-patties amplified the noise, adding a juicy quality to the already majestic booty burp.

The initial passing of gas lasted a total of thirteen seconds. But the echo… The echo lasted several lifetimes.

Experts in the field of theoretical hogwash have speculated for years: if a fart is released in the World that Never Was, and nobody but Nobodies are present to experience it, does it truly make a sound?

The answer is yes.

In a place filled with nothing but emptiness, sound has nothing to do _but_ travel. It resonated in the walls of their high-ceilinged meeting area. It bounced off all thirteen chairs, causing those sitting in them to softly vibrate. Xemnas’s profound poot rebound and touched the other seven occupants at their cores, filling the hollowed-shells that once housed their hearts with dookie air.

Zexion realized what was happening before anyone else. Usually, sound travels quicker than smell, but, to one with his advanced sniffer, it was the other way around. The stank hit his snout a fraction of a millisecond before the vibrations created noise; before the rest of the Organization could even process what was happening, Zexion had fallen halfway out of his seat.

The other six heard it at the same time, but Xigbar was the one who reacted first. A second into Xemnas’s esoteric _brapppp,_ his face lit up like he’d walked into heaven and it was filled with fellow Californians.

Luxord’s expression remained mild, but he dropped his deck of cards once the wind broke the four-second mark.

By the sixth second, Xaldin’s normally stern expression had warped into one of barely concealed awe at such a bold and intense power-move.

Demyx’s jaw dropped. Lexaeus subconsciously summoned his battle axe to defend himself.

Saïx forced himself to remain as calm and unphased as ever when, internally, he was endlessly aroused by this grandiose display of strength and stamina. That man, the man, no the _god_ who had just broken the world-record on longest, most compelling anus air ejection, was sexing him regularly. Goddamn. As much as he hated to admit it, Xemnas was a catch. If he used even a fraction of that potential in bed... the thought had his cunt slicker than the floor of a sex shop, and Saïx was too done with this entire fiasco of a meeting to berate himself for feeling that way.

After Xemnas completed his thirteen-second one-man symphony, the sound simply echoed around the room, nobody brave enough to interrupt such a provocative piece of artistic creation.

Demyx breathed out a low “Holy shit…” that only Saïx, sitting to his direct right, was able to hear.

Just as Luxord was about to bring his hands together in a round of applause, a second, far less impressive note hit the air.

This one was wetter. It bubbled a bit more, and wasn’t nearly as long or loud. It was as subtle as a bodily noise could be in a room filled with eight men too afraid to breathe, in that it wasn’t.

Everyone heard it. It came, just as unannounced or uncalled for as Xemnas’s World Shattering Assrip, except something was amiss. This particular sound was something other than a fart. A fart wasn’t that soggy, or fizzy. They never sounded as bouncy and moist as that particular noise did.

Unlike Xemnas’s butt belch, the second fart wasn’t a fart at all.

It was a queef, soggy and thick as it escaped Saïx’s vagina. The squishy sound brought with it a faint melody of period blood and pussy vapors, something that had no business being in a room of eight men.

Saïx felt his body filling with horror. He swallowed and pointedly avoided making eye-contact with anyone in particular.

Xigbar looked at Demyx, and Demyx looked at Zexion. Zexion glanced over at Lexaeus who vanished his battle axe and stared blankly up at Xaldin, who, in turn, shifted his gaze to Xemnas. Xemnas, being unable to grasp the complexity of the situation, stared straight ahead, completely unphased.

Thankfully, nobody’s eyes traveled to Saïx who was trying—and failing- to hide his embarrassment.

Damn it, Larxene. The ONE meeting she needed to be present for, and she wasn’t.

“If that is all, gentleman,” Xemnas’s dignified baritone broke through the tension like a hard-on at a funeral. “Meeting adjourned.”

Their glorious leader vanished into a portal of darkness, without even saying ‘excuse me.’


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have another light one.

At the unholy hour of three in the god-forsaken morning, Saïx awoke.

Now, Saïx was known for keeping, what Xigbar called, a ‘batshit’ sleep schedule, but not even he was insane enough to be up this early. He typically made a habit of rolling his sorry ass out of bed at roughly five in the morning, after Xaldin left for his daily pre-dawn ritual of beating the ever-loving snot out of unsuspecting Heartless in Downtown World Where Nothing Gathers. While the older man was working out, Saïx would hop in and out of the shower, get dressed, and then down six cups of coffee in order to be refreshed and revigorated enough not to Berserk at the first person he came across.

On this particularly dreary Tuesday, Saïx broke his normally unbreakable routine, not out of an urge to spice up his monochromatic nonexistence, but because there was something moving beside one of his arms.

He opened his eyes, found himself staring face-to-featureless face with a single Dusk and sighed.

It was going to be one of _those_ days.

The Dusk froze upon being caught. As slowly and tentatively as a wriggly little creature of nothingness could, it gently placed a small box in the greater nobody’s hand before vanishing.

Saïx frowned at the package of extra-small condoms in weary confusion before it dawned on him.

This was a prank.

God fucking dammit.

It was bad enough he had to deal with a brotherhood of barely-functional adults in his waking hours. Now the assholes he had the displeasure of sharing a living space in had the audacity to piss all over his precious sleep-cycle, too?

No. Absolutely not. He refused to give them the satisfaction.

Saïx groaned and attempted to will himself back to sleep, but that thing by his arm kept shaking.

He dug the vibrating egg out of his sheets, and noticed, with increasing annoyance, that his hand was covered in a jelly-like substance.

It wasn’t just his hand. His entire bed and body was drenched in the shit.

Even his _hair_ was thoroughly coated in the crap.

Now, Saïx was able to put up with a lot. His endurance was on par with an Olympic swimmer and his patience was legend-worthy.

Dealing with bullshit was 90% of his job description. The reason he was second in command in this organization of insufferable incompetents was due largely in part to the fact that _nobody else wanted to be._ Nobody else hated themselves enough to willingly embrace Xemnas’s monotonous monologues, or Vexen’s jargon-filled scientific rants, or Marluxia complaining about the tea not being ‘herbal’ enough, despite never going to the grocery store to purchase his thrice-rotton fru-fru Gucci tea himself.

Most things, Saïx could deal with.

But lube in his hair? This went beyond a simple display of immaturity.

This was a goddamned declaration of war.

Saïx bit back a growl. He refused to give whichever shit-stain cooked up this brilliant prank the satisfaction of hearing him upset. He would grit his teeth and endure, just like he endured everything else in his cursed nonexistence. Then, he would find the culprit and make that person’s life a living hell.

He propped himself up as well as a man covered in enough lubricant to oil up an entire truck stop could, which wasn’t much. He blinked in rage before turning over and finding himself face-to-inflatable-tits with a horrifying blow-up caricature of a woman.

After a mildly undignified squeak of horror, Saïx fell.

Covered in as much sex jelly as he was, he slid out of bed like a surprisingly nimble newborn escaping from the womb only to catch himself in a complicated web of bondage tape. Then, he’d tripped over a pair of Ben-wa balls, landed face-first in a highly-realistic silicone ass, rolled, and wound up with several mis-matched pairs of nipple clamps knotted in his hair. By this point, Saïx was so tangled in bondage tape that his entire upper half was practically useless. His first attempt at sitting up resulted in him slipping and tripping over a ball gag. His second attempt ended with him getting his legs caught in the tube of a poorly placed pussy-pump and slamming his funny bone into an electric enema cleaning system.

Wincing in pain, the Luna Diviner subconsciously alerted his Berserkers and the Dusks to his distress. Two Dusks appeared beside him and wiggled around unhelpfully. The Berserkers, having been taught that they were, under no circumstances, allowed to enter the areas of the Castle with lower ceilings, instead transported themselves to the _other_ bedroom Saïx typically slept in to request backup.

On the other side of the wall, he could hear Vexen demanding a cease to the racket, but Saïx, quite frankly, didn’t care.

If he had to be awake at three am, so should everybody else.

When the pain in his elbow finally subsided, Saïx opened his eyes.

He was greeted by the sight of the longest and largest dildo he’d ever beheld, sitting innocently two inches away from his face. Not that he’d seen many dildos, mind you, but he knew they existed, and he was familiar enough with sex to have a general understanding of what a rubber dick was supposed to look like. The meaty, fluorescent green dong before him possessed a girth that was incomprehensible, and a length that made Xemnas’s superior shlong look like a free hotel sample.

Saïx was terrified to blink as he slowly slid backwards, afraid that if he looked away from that cursed dong for more than a second, it would strike. This refusal to check his surroundings was ultimately his undoing. His left foot grazed the ‘on’ switch of a rabbit vibrator, which started spasming on the floor like a wounded caterpillar, colliding with a wand massager that rolled, causing a pile of precariously-balanced fleshlights to tumble. One of them knocked over a second, less intimidating dildo, which, in turn, flopped onto a spanking paddle resting atop a small butt plug. The spanking paddle flipped upwards like an uneven see-saw, sending a metal cock ring flying across the room.

Because this morning was just a domino effect of disasters, the door Saïx’s bedroom opened at that very moment, revealing an agitated Vexen. Vexen, dressed in a blue bathrobe, wholly unequipped and unprepared to deal with the cock ring that collided with his temple, did what any half-asleep man with ice-wielding abilities would in his position:

He froze things.

“Things” in this instance being Saïx.

Saïx took that personally.

The blunette roared in outrage, attempting to break free of his bindings as his Berserker state consumed his body.

Vexen, now slightly more awake, summoned his shield. He froze Saïx again, this time in self-defense.

When Xemnas appeared in the doorway half a minute later, Vexen was in a protective igloo of ice while Saïx lay on the ground, quite literally, freezing his tits off within a hard shell of frozen lubricant and screaming at the top of his lungs. _What_ he was screaming was incoherent, but the noise was enough to wake and gather the rest of the Organization.

The Superior coolly assessed the situation. He took in his frozen subordinate and the, quite frankly, obscene amount of sex toys. He looked to Xigbar. In a voice commanding and powerful, he asked, “What is the meaning of this?”

“Looks like a prank gone south.”

Xemnas nodded, and instructed Axel to do something.

The organization’s handy-man looked between his screaming ex-BFF and his boss wearing nothing but zebra-patterned PJ bottoms, and quickly assessed which one was the more dangerous threat.

“No offense, sir, but thawing him out seems like a bad idea.”

Xemnas summoned a single Ethereal blade.

The redhead threw his hands up in front of his face defensively. “Fine, fine! Loud and clear, boss!”

Thawing Saïx out was an ordeal.

Axel usually used his fire as a flingable projectile or a weapon, not as an agent of heat, and melting the frozen Nobody was an exercise in precision. Axel lacked precision. He set Saïx’s hair on fire.

Xemnas was instantly on the Berserker’s back, holding him still while Xigbar dealt with his hair.

“You had one job, Flamesilocks!” Xigbar bellowed, attempting to stomp out the flames. He set his slippers on fire in the process. “Demyx, get over here!”

Demyx squeaked before blasting the entire room with water.

Good job, Demyx.

With no other choices available, Xemnas was forced to knock Saïx unconscious and dump the man into his own personal bathtub to thaw.

Missions were canceled that day.

The next day began much later than the previous one.

At 8:00 sharp, all twelve members were huddled in the Grey Area for an informal gathering.

Saïx sat on one of the couches, shivering from beneath a cocoon of blankets. A good section of his hair was cut short, and he glared at anyone who made the mistake of looking at him.

Naturally, Larxene couldn’t leave well-enough alone.

“Oh, _wow._ Sai- _icks._ ” she snickered. “You look like you got caught in a shredder!”

Since this was an informal gathering and not a professional one, Saïx summoned a claymore and hurled at the wench. Unfortunately, it missed and lodged itself into a wall before vanishing.

“Why, you little—”

“Larxene,” Marluxia grabbed the woman by the arm at the same time Luxord crossed his arms and said, “Really?”

“What?” the electric bitch pouted. “He started it!”

“Compatriots,” Xemnas interrupted. He looked out at his organization with the air of a disappointed father reprimanding his misbehaving children at a funeral. “It has come to my attention that our family is in dire need of-” he paused, as if mentally searching for the word, _“-bonding.”_

Several Nobodies’ faces filled with dread.

“To that end, I propose a solution.” He took a sheet of paper out of his pocket, squinted at his own illegible handwriting, and passed the paper to Saïx.

_“Esprit de corps_ intensification exercises…?” Saïx read aloud in horror.

“I understood one word of that,” Axel confessed.

Zexion rolled his eyes. “It means ‘team morale building.” The ‘idiot’ at the end was implied.

“Well, _excuse me_ for not carrying around a dictionary everywhere I go.”

The Cloaked Schemer gawked. “It’s a _lexicon.”_

“Same difference,” Axel waved it off.

“No, it is not—”

Xigbar clapped Zexion across the shoulder. “Hate to break it to you, Squirt, but Flames is right.”

Zexion sputtered, looking to Lexaeus for support. The larger man merely shrugged.

“A lexicon can also be a thesaurus,” Luxord argued. “Which I personally prefer over a dictionary.”

“Or a glossary,” Vexen added.

Larxene had nothing to add to the conversation, so she let out a nasally laugh.

Xaldin crossed his arms and _hmped._ “We’re getting off-topic.”

“Indeed,” Xemnas nodded. “In order to deepen our respect towards one another, we're spending the weekend in Albuquerque, New Mexico."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for taking so long with this one! I had several main plot points planned, but I couldn't figure out which order they should be in chronologically. In trying to puzzle them out, I wound up writing a bunch of other crap by accident . welp.   
> I wanted to explain Saix's dumb hair, and this chapter happened.  
> I'm sorry.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some intentional OOC-ness.

In the days leading up to their excursion to Albuquerque, Saïx was forced to make peace with several loses.

Firstly, his hair wasn’t magically growing back. The top of Saïx’s head had been reduced to shaggy, blue tufts that stuck up at all angles in defiance of gravity. Marluxia took pity on him and offered to trim his hair in such a way that made it look ‘layered’, and the resulting hairstyle looked stylish and almost intentional. While Saïx was silently grateful for Marluxia’s skill with scissors, that didn’t change the fact that his hair had been butchered in the first place and he refused to let go of his rage until he was able to direct it at the culprit.

Secondly, was Saïx’s emergency alcohol stash.

When Vexen froze Saïx’s room, he froze his _entire room_ , including the suitcases of whiskey and moonshine he kept under his bed. The question of _why_ Saïx needed three entire suitcases of hard liquor could be answered simply by observing Demyx at any given hour of the day.

Booze was not intended to be frozen, nor was it intended to be thawed.

It especially wasn’t intended to be flash-frozen in mere seconds.

Half the bottles had shattered, and the ones that hadn’t were spoiled and undrinkable.

They’d been _expensive._ Almost all of Saïx’s expendable salary had gone towards maintaining his sanity via alcohol; what was easily several years’ worth of pain was, quite literally, down the drain.

((Saïx so desperately needed a drink.))

Worse than the booze or his hair was his small nightstand table of meager possessions.

His personal journal had been covered in lube, frozen over, and then drenched in water; the pages were soggy, and splotches of ink bled into one another.

It must have been some cosmic joke that the notebook he’d used to keep track of his thoughts for nearly a decade had been reduced to nothing but mush in the span of a couple hours. 

All the drunken poetry and two-sentence summaries of his days… gone.

Just like that.

Every meaningful object he’d owned had fit in the top drawer of his nightstand; all the little gifts Xemnas had given him, the family photos he’d managed to recover from Radiant Garden, and one wooden popcicle stick with the word ‘winner’ on it.

All of them were destroyed. 

With a resigned sigh, Saïx dumped it all into the trash.

Since nobody had come forward to claim credit for the awful prank, Saïx was in possession of an impressive collection of sex toys.

He didn’t know how to properly dispose of them, so he threw everything that was unboxed and dishwasher safe into the dishwasher and had Demyx hand-wash everything else. Then, they carefully patted-down the disinfected toys with a dish towel, stuck them on the drying rack and then placed the drying rack on the roof. After ensuring every silicon penis and butt-plug was thoroughly moisture-free, Saïx placed each one into its own sanitary ziplock baggie.

Since his own bedroom was no longer safe, he purchased a highly durable storage bin and tucked everything into the back of Xemnas’s closet.

Saïx wasn’t a sentimental person. However…

Aside from the hollow trinkets Xemnas gifted him, those stupid sex toys were the only present he’d received in over ten years.

While they’d been bestowed upon him with the malicious intent of telling him to get laid and ease-up, they’d been picked out specifically with _him_ in mind.

If he could feel it, he’d probably call the feeling in his chest ‘bittersweet’.

* * *

The emotional bareness of being a Nobody was perplexing.

It wasn’t that they couldn’t feel; they could. If Saïx tried hard enough, he could bring himself to experience emotions as heartily as Isa had, if only for a short amount of time.

However, stripped of the _need_ to feel ‘human’ emotions like guilt and sadness, Nobodies simply _didn’t_. It was easier that way. More productive. Far less painful.

For someone without a heart, feeling was difficult. Feeling was much like a muscle that needed to be utilize in order to stay strong. The longer they went without practicing emotion, the harder it was to feel anything at all.

Being a Nobody wasn’t _lacking_ emotions; they just had the ability to turn off the empathy and just not give a shit about anything or anyone they weren’t personally invested in.

Which is why, when it came to Axel, Saïx still cared. That numbing apathy that lingered around every other aspect of his non-existence dissipated when it came to the fiery flamethrower. The feelings for his longest, closest friend were the strongest emotions he’d possessed as a person, and he refused to relinquish his hold on them.

Saïx yearned for nothing more than to return to the way things were, when it was just the two of them without a care in the world. No matter how much it hurt, no matter how much it pained him, he quietly pined after Axel. Thoughts of Lea filled his empty chest with longing for what could have been.

When Saïx became a Nobody, he lost his heart, his identity, and his body.

Isa’s love for Lea was the one thing that hadn’t been taken away.

With time, however, that pure love became twisted. Selfish.

The love Isa felt for Lea slowly evolved into an obsessive infatuation.

Where Isa was able to survive any social interaction, regardless of his own personal investment and enjoyment, simply by seeing Lea smile, Saïx could not stand Axel being happy without him. Isa, whose entire existence was spent vicariously stewing in Lea’s love of life, became the bitter, frigid Saïx who was unable to quietly mirror other’s emotions and, instead, did everything to in his power to make everyone else as unhappy and empty as he was.

Isa was the midsummer moon that reflected the sun at its brightest. Saïx was a new moon in December that looked down on all with cold indifference while greedily hoarding every ounce of warmth for himself.

Saïx didn’t care how others felt about him. He didn’t care if he was being a bitch and venting his frustrations on the rest of the organization. As long as Isa’s future with Lea remained achievable, nothing mattered.

If Axel decided to play nice with other Organization members, that was his business. It didn’t matter. It was just a fleeting need for socialization. Like Lea, Axel was an extrovert. As his best friend, Saïx knew him well enough to recognize that.

At the end of the day, every last person in the Castle That Never Was was self-serving, and Axel, for all that he’d been Lea, was no exception.

Neither was Xemnas.

If anything, Xemnas was a shining example of what they’d all eventually become. The longer spent away from civilization and societal expectations dictating right from wrong, the more they’d give in to their baser instincts, with complete disregard for the needs of others. Xemnas, as the resident amnesiac, had no recollection of his life as a Somebody and, therefor, had no memory of what it was like to get pissed. Annoyance was an abstract notion he couldn’t grasp because he had no frame of reference. He couldn’t make sense of the expression on others, let alone comprehend the cause of it.

That was why Xemnas spoke ceaselessly. It was why he lacked the self-awareness to recognize his tendency to bore his organization. He was so filled with apathy that he couldn’t comprehend others’ having perspectives that differed from his own. That made him both too trusting, and incredibly infuriating to have as a boss/landlord.

Xemnas thought that, because he himself couldn’t understand anything that wasn’t literal, the rest of his organization couldn’t, either.

Hence Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Of all the worlds that existed, Albuquerque was, in Saïx’s humble opinion, the worst.

It was comprised of a country club, a high school, one street in a suburban neighborhood, and absolutely nothing else. Despite nearly everyone the Organization being well above high school age, something about this particular world made them all appear to be teenagers. Not as they _were_ as teenagers, mind you; the hardened edges on the older members were simply chipped away until they were soft and baby-faced. Isa had always been taller than Lea, but sixteen-year-old Axel was lanky and awkward and towered over all of them like a gangly scarecrow. Without the greying hair and wizened wrinkles, Xigbar, Xaldin and Vexen looked almost comically youthful. Luxord’s goatee had been replaced with braces, which made him look twelve and oddly innocent. Xemnas’s muscles had melted and his jawline had completely disappeared, leaving him appearing perpetually pouty and borderline chunky.

But, worse than the white-bread amount of depth, Vexen’s voice cracking, and Demyx with a face full of zits, was the singing.

Light, the _singing._

Due to the magic of the world, any argument, debate, spat or tense conversation was turned into a completely-choreographed musical number during which any and all primary participants were forced to confess their feelings through song.

Staying there for one hour was long enough, but a weekend?

They wouldn’t survive.

Within the first ten minutes, Zexion stapled his mouth shut to maintain his air of mystery. Saïx couldn’t blame him. He himself was doing everything in his power to avoid talking to anyone.

And then, it started.

Marluxia was the first to go down.

Being one of the newer members of the Organization, he’d never been to Albuquerque before, and nobody warned him. The poor man didn’t stand a chance.

_“Roses are red, violets are blue. Xemnas, I’m done sucking up to you~”_

Saïx groaned and walked away before he could be drawn into Marluxia’s spectacle.

Unfortunately, he walked right into Axel’s.

“Hi, you must be one of the new exchange students,” two boys in jerseys approached the flamethrower. One of them, for no discernible reason, was holding a basketball against his chest like it was the thing in the world that mattered. “I’m Chad.”

“I’m Jason.”

“You got a name?” Chad asked, casually bouncing the ball against a locker.

Axel grinned, “Do I ever.”

Then, the music started.

_“I’m only gonna to say it once, so drill it into your brain,”_ Axel started. _“I’m only gonna tell you once, yo, don’t forget my name~”_

The lights dimmed and he started walking, passive-aggressively, down the hallway, with Saïx, Chad and Jason as his entourage. _“I’m Axel. Got it memorized? I’m Axel! I’ll be immortalized~ in your memories, and live forever!”_

He then proceeded to say his name 47 more times in less than two minutes.

_“I’ve tried, I can’t forget you_ ,” Saïx felt himself singing against his will.

_“You’re lying if you think I’d let you!”_

_“Ugh, you’re so infernal.”_

_“My name will be eternal!”_

Finally, after enduring a 3 minute 30 second musical number, Saïx was free.

He hastily fled in a random direction and found himself in a less crowded hallway. From one of the classrooms, he could hear Vexen singing with the Science Club, and he shuddered.

Saïx wound up breaking into a car in the student parking lot to avoid interacting with anyone. ‘Breaking in’ was a bit of a stretch because this was Albuquerque. Nobody locked their doors in Albuquerque because life was singing, dancing and sports. There was no crime, and nothing existed after high school.

He managed to make it four hours in blissful silence, until to his horror, he heard a baritone far too deep to be a high school student.

_“This beating in my chest, thought I’d put it to rest.”_

Xemnas had done a costume change. Instead of his usual leather coat, he was dressed in a black-and-white hoodie layered stylishly over a plain red t-shirt, jeans, and red sneakers.

Worst of all, he was doing minimalistic dancing as he walked, the kind where it was just hand gestures timed to the beat.

 _“I’m supposed to feel nothing, so why do I feel----”_ he jumped dramatically over a traffic cone. _“Emptiness, longing, loneliness—It’s wrong, and I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t feel anything at all!”_

The sight of Xemnas stylishly twirling on the curb while clutching at his chest was one that would forever be ingrained in Saïx’s retina. Even if he wanted to forget, he wouldn’t be able to.

_“I’m not okay! I’m not doing fine! I shouldn’t feel this way- make it go away--! I’d rather feel something, than nothing inside. But why does it hurt? I’m ready to burst!”_

Saïx felt like he was witnessing something private, but, were he to attempt to flee, he’d likely be drawn into it. So, he waited it out. For nearly three minutes, he did everything in his power to ignore the way Xemnas was having a breakdown solo-number in the parking lot behind him.

The rest of the day went without issue.

Mostly.

There was an incident involving Larxene shoving Demyx into a trashcan, and Lexaeus broke into a tap-dance number in the cafeteria. Xigbar joined the Drama Club and got them all invited to some house party that happened to be on the same street in the Suburban neighborhood as the AirBnB they’d rented. Xemnas calmly ordered them all to attend, because why _wouldn’t_ a group of adults desire to go to ‘mingle’ with high school students in the home of some seventeen-year-old girl whose parents were out of town?

Saïx spent the duration of the party watching the basketball star and his girlfriend dance around each other (literally) while lamenting the fact that the punch was entirely unspiked and wishing the girl who sat down next to him would kindly shut up and let him be miserable in peace.

She’d somehow convinced him to join her club before hilariously, wrongly assuming Saïx would be the perfect gossiping companion/wingman.

“He’s so dark and mysterious,” the girl-- Ashley? Chelsea? Kaitlyn? Saïx couldn’t be bothered to remember her name, or what she was talking about.- gushed, nudging him on the shoulder. “And cute!”

“Is that right?” Saïx offered disinterestedly, glaring at Axel who had jumped into the swimming pool fully-dressed.

“You have eyes, don’t you? Look at him!” Robin?? nodded. Saïx wasn’t entirely sure who he was supposed to be looking at, so he just pretended he couldn’t see Luxord enjoying showing fifteen-year-old girls card tricks a little _too_ much. “He joined the chess club, so he’s smart, too! Smart _and_ handsome. Talk about the full package.”

To Saïx’s dismay, the bottle of whiskey above the fireplace didn’t even contain real alcohol.

“But you’re from the same school, so you already know this,” Rebecca—her name was Rebecca!- said. “Should I ask him out?”

“Go for it,” Saïx answered, praying that she’d actually do it and leave him in peace.

“Alright!” Rebecca stood up and made a beeline for Xemnas. Saïx couldn’t quite hear what was said over the sound of high school melodrama, but she returned to his side far too soon for his liking.

“He said he’s already courting someone,” she sounded slightly resigned, but forced herself to giggle. “That’s _so_ old-fashioned!”

Before Saïx could offer the poor girl some fake sympathy, Xigbar appeared out of nowhere, holding a can of off-brand lemon soda.

“You ready to split, Moonbeam?” he threw an arm around Saïx’s shoulders like they were friends or something. Disgusting. “It’s 10:30, and curfew’s at 11. Boss man wants us to round up the troops.”

“You’re leaving?” Rebecca asked. “Can you tell Xemnas I said hi?”

“Sure thing,” Xigbar winked at her as much as someone with one eye could.

Sleeping arrangements were a mess.

Xemnas had never organized an over-night work function before, and it showed. He’d assumed renting a house would automatically mean that there would be just as many beds as there were in _their_ house, which was laughably incorrect.

There were a grand total of five beds, and twelve bodies needing to sleep in them.

…until Xaldin discovered one of the couches had a fold-out bed and called dibs before anyone could stop him, which meant there were eleven people and five beds.

Better, but still not great.

Xemnas, their formidable leader, claimed the only king-sized bed, declared Saïx would be rooming with him, and then sauntered off to the master suite as if the logistics for everyone else didn’t affect him.

Saïx took charge and paired everyone up by size, simply to prevent a musical number before it occurred. (Thankfully, all the remaining beds were double.)

Larxene bunked with Marluxia. Lexaeus with Zexion. Xigbar shared with Luxord. Axel and Vexen roomed together, and that assignment had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Saïx was still pissed at both of them for their involvement in fucking up both his room and his hair.

Nothing at all.

That left only Demyx.

Demyx, as this bastardized teenage version of himself, was easily the smallest.

He was still too big to stick into a bathtub with some blankets, though.

Weighing the pros and cons, Saïx was forced to come to the only conclusion that involved everyone comfortably sleeping in a bed.

Had he a heart, it would have filled with despair.

“Demyx, you’re sharing the king-sized bed with Xemnas and myself.”

The next morning started in the worst way imaginable.

_“How long, has it taken me-- to wake up-up-up to see- that you~”_

Saïx awoke to a weirdly baby-faced Xemnas curled up around him and serenading in his ear.

_“You are the beat of my heart!”_

But this was a musical number, and no theatrical performance is complete without a dance.

Xemnas rolled until he was standing at the foot of the bed, and started singing, louder:

_“You’re the one! You’re the one completin’ me!”_

Saïx wasn’t sure what was stranger: Xemnas singing, or Xemnas being limited to the vocabulary of a fifth-grader.

_“My chest was empty, then you came and filled me! I was sleepin’, then you went and woke me to that beat-beat-beat of my heart!”_

…definitely the fifth-grade vocabulary.

Xemnas began jumping more vigorously on the bed, and his poor second-in-command was forced to pull his knees to his chest to prevent being stampeded.

_“You got it thump-thump-thumpin’ my heart!”_

Saïx started singing before he could stop himself. _“I was lonely, every day spent by myself. Then I went, took a risk and then I fell-- into your arms and into yo~ur bed—boy, am I glad I did--”_

In one fluid hop, Saïx, too, was bouncing atop the bed.

_“Cuz you make me feel—forget that I don’t have a heart--! Oh-oh! I pretend that thump-thump-thumpin’s my heart!”_

_“Oh-oh!”_ Xemnas chimed in _. “You-you-you are my heart!”_

_“Do you feel? Feel the hole inside my chest--!”_ They sang in unison, placing a hand on the others’ left breast. _“I’m emp-ty. You’re the one that knows that best! But you-- make me-- feel like a Some-body~”_

The two men-turned-Nobodies-turned-teenagers joined hands. _“And it’s beat-beat-beating, my heart! You got it jump-jump-jumping, my heart!”_

They kissed and collapsed onto the mattress.

“What the hell,” Demyx sat up. “You two fuck?!”

“We didn’t have sex,” Saïx assured Demyx for the fifth time that morning. They were standing in one of the empty hallways in the high school, not attending classes because classes seemed to be nonexistent.

“Good! Because I was _right there,_ man. Right there! You could have gotten the _juices_ on me or something,” he shuddered.

Saïx fought the urge to roll his eyes.

“But don’t worry,” Demyx beamed up at him. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“It had better be.”

Demyx either didn’t hear the underlying threat or ignored it. He awkwardly strummed a note on his sitar before coughing.

“Uh, Saïx? Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but, uh, since we’re oversharing today… You,uh, might want to considerwearingabra.”

The blunette blinked. “What?”

“Consider wearing a bra?” Demyx immediately realized what he said and started waving his hands in front of his face defensively. “You were jumping this morning, and you were _really_ bouncing,“ He held his hands in front of his chest to demonstrate. “And I noticed--.”

At the unimpressed expression on Saïx’s face, Demyx desperately started backtracking.

“I wasn’t looking or anything—!” He flailed around hopelessly. “You just don’t have any of your muscles here and it’s kinda noticeable?”

Saïx pursed his lips, and looked down. His chest was, indeed, noticeable. Demyx took that as permission to dig himself deeper into the hole.

“I mean, you don’t have to wear a bra if you don’t want to! I read that girls with bigger boobs are more comfortable with one on. Your boobs are so big, so they’ve got to be really heavy so maybe a bra could… help…”

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Demyx was the perfect size to fit in a locker. That’s where he spent the rest of the day.

Saïx was on his way to lock himself in a stall in the men’s room when that girl from the party, Rebecca, caught sight of him.

_“There_ you are!” she said. “I’ve been looking all over for you! Did you get lost on the way to the math department?”

“No?”

She grabbed his arm. “C’mon! We’re going to be late for off-road roller derby practice!”

Saïx was dragged halfway through the building before they ran into a crowd.

“What’s going on?” Rebecca asked one of the other students.

“That new girl just got in a fight with _Sharpay!”_

”What?!” gasped Rebecca. “No way! Are you joking?”

“As if!” Xigbar appeared out of nowhere eating someone else’s lunch.

Sure enough, Larxene was engaged in what could only be considered the most white-washed, tone-deaf, G-Rated vanilla version of a rap battle on the planet against a teenaged girl wearing bedazzled pants.

Saïx walked away, found an empty broom closet and teleported back to the World That Never Was before his day could possibly get worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to make which Disney property they were in as obvious as possible without being explicit. Hopefully it wasn't too vague.
> 
> This marks the end of the purely comic-relief chapters. Thank you for sticking with me for the mess that was this and the last one!
> 
> If you enjoyed, please feel free to leave a comment! I get nervous and don't always respond, but comments fuel me and any opinions or critiques you have are greatly appreciated!


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